Disappointment

AS isnt gonna open a HNL base at all. They would just tag on inter island flying to the 3 or 4 day trips that already exist.

FyrePilot

I agree.

Anything west coast is going to directly to tourist’s destination island on narrow body. Then those same narrow bodies will fly a reduced interisland schedule with less frequency but higher capacity.

My guess is Hawaiian MEC gives up a lot to protect interisland scope when new combined pilot group is not even going to have pilots that fly exclusively interisland.

Wide body from continental US will decrease. HNL will be hub to go further east (Japan, SYD). They will probably be able to do that with just the 12 787s. Maybe they keep a few 330-200s for a bit.

Everyone speculating that Alaska is going to order more 787s. There is a backlog of 750+ with about 50 a year being delivered. So it’s either a350s and proudly all Boeing goes out the window or a very long time. If they want 787s they are going to need to buy someone else’s order book or wait 7+ years.

My job outlook depends on the wildcard and that is if Alaska keeps the Amazon flying or sells it to suncountry or atlas. I am currently a new FO on 330 so my career expectations are to fly wide body and be wide body captain in less than 10 years. I doubt any SLI will put me anywhere close to that if we only have a fraction of the wide body aircraft in terms of a percentage in the whole company. We are going from a company with approx 40% wide body to less than 10% if they let the 330s roll of lease in the next few years.

ImperialxRat

7 years is not a long time in airline terms. This current Amazon contract is 8 years, extendable to 10 (I think), so even if it does take 7 years to receive a new 787 order, that's not that big of a deal to the New Alaska. The merger process is really slow, and it will take time to merge and integrate everything, after DOJ approval and SLI. Alaska is a patient slow moving machine.

Disappointment

The AS pilot group got it's first scope clause last year with it's most recent contract. They used a lot of negotiating capital to get it because previously there was none. It was the highest priority for the group when polled during negotiations. I can unequivocally say that the AS guys wont give an inch and will be supportive of your more restrictive scope.

Keep your expectations there - wb capt in 10 years wont happen. The percentage of wb flying is going way down for you guys and once fences come down in 5 years or whatever they end up being they will shift that flying around (probably to Seattle). Also the AS pilot group is relatively young and has only about 80 retirements a year (out of 3200). It sucks, but at least youll have better job security and your commuters will have some west coast base options.

av8tor55

Why wouldn't they keep a HNL base, it would cut down a lot on crew hotels/transportation costs in Hawaii. I assume AS has day-trips? You can just do the interisland flying as a day-trip.

word302

The HNL base is definitely staying and will be a major hub for the combined airline. This latest conversation is about Alaska opening a HNL base before the merger is complete, which would just be stupid.

fuzzball

Problem with this (switching transpac to all narrowbodies) is the huge amount of freight that flies around in the belly. Something like 10% of the revenue hitching a ride without the costs of meals or flight attendants. So that's an argument for transpac widebodies. Plus passengers love it. Want to differentiate from UA/AA/SW in this market? Keep flying the large, comfortable airplanes that climb straight to 410.

Yakattack

I think the very first words out of my mouth (or at least the very first thoughts in my head) were, "I don't want to learn a new plane, and I don't want to move to HNL." That hasn't changed over the course of the last week.

Sheesh, and you thought Seattle was expensive...

FyrePilot

I agree that a lot of cargo does go on, however UPS/FedEx and most likely the rest of the cargo carriers are hungry for business right now. They have the capacity to do it.

Hawaiian 330s are older. On the last call before the announcement, they said they would not consider interior refurbishment until 2025 at the earliest. While they do have lie flat seats, they only have 18 of them. New 787 has 30+ so that might be a fix. It comes down to how many customers are going to pay for that luxury to justify spending the extra gas on the widebody. The economy product in the 330s is standard with old IFE and no wifi yet.

Also the new max10s and some 321s that UA ordered will have lie flat. (https://viewfromthewing.com/reveal-u...s-class-seats/) Not sure what alaska is planning for their maxes but as of right now they have no lie flat product, however they do have 48 max 10s on order. If they plan on flying them against UA they better include lie flat or be prepared to lose premium customers. I think the goal is to compete with Southwest for now for west coast and interisland with max 8s and 9s. They have not even started the strategy phase to compete with UA and DL max 10s. AA has 321s and 787s on the hawaii routes so its an even playing field

The geared engines and higher frequency make the narrow body tough to compete with in terms of economy passengers, if the UA narrowbody ends up with 28 lie flat seats there is no way to sell passengers on why they should spend more to get the same thing. Especially when UA is big enough to run the route at a loss to gain market share.

rickair7777

AS idea of premium customers isn't the same as UA's. Lot of loyalty upgrades, and the ones that pay are more like budget business.

We'll see how that plays out on widebodies/long haul.